For the Love of Botany (Revisited)

[Alexander III]

Hello.
I have just submitted my first story. It is called For the Love of Botany (Revisited) and is my version of an original idea that Athena e_19 posted in the Nonhuman board. My story takes her ideas and expands them a bit. I have e-mailed Athena and told her of my intention to submit this story. I have also credited her at the start of the story.
I would really like some more feedback on this, as it is my first attempt. I have already had a few feedbacks sent to me, which I really appreciate, but would certainly like some more. The story can be found in the Novels Board. Please have a look and tell me what you think. Thanks.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

A3,

You'll have a much better chance of getting some response if you post the URL for your story.

RF

 

[PaulX35]

The link

Here's the link

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=69712

 

[PaulX35]

A few thoughts

Alexander,

Your story is quite long, and my impressions are not based on reading it entirely; I'm afraid I just didn't have the time for it, so I browsed through parts of it, for which I apologize.

A few impressions though, bearing that in mind:

Fantasy-stories allow quite a bit of unblievable things into their own reality; it's what makes them this genre. Even within a fantasy-concept, however, you'd have to stick to a certain internal logic to make what you're painting a convincing thing for the reader.
The idea of the plant is intriguing. But you have to keep in mind that you have chosen to let it be a plant. And you cannot subsequently attribute human capacities to a thing you have elected to be a plant.
Biologically, a plant will feed and grow. In your case it will feed on the female organ, and it will grow, and reproduce.
But you cannot train a plant the way you are trying to make us believe in this story. Neither will a plant that evolution has created to feed on female organs ever engage in anal activities or breast stimulation.

So, while the concept itself of women growing to find themselves sexually dependant on a 'mindless' subject is a well known and highly intriguing aspect that can perform magic in an erotic-fantasy story, I get the feeling you are overdoing things a bit. The power of good writing is also in sticking to the essentials, and I think - even when not having read it all in detail - that you writing such an extended piece has made you miss a chance to make this into a sizzling short(er) story.

Technically - although I realize direct speech opportunities are somewhat limited in parts of this story-concept - large parts of your story lean heavily on the narrative style. It takes good writing with lots of variation to keep the reader's attention then. Many paragraphs you wrote contain a little too many "She-did"-sentences, and it's hard to captivate the reader over 20 pages with this relative lack of sentence-variation.
Personally, I would have added in lots more inner thought or monologue interieur of the characters involved in the first chapters, just to create sufficient changes of perspective for the reader.

Your characters: in a long story I'd want to see something happening to characters. And I often see too little of it. Very bluntly put, the first chapters left me with the idea of seeing a parade of women entering, cumming and leaving stage, without really getting to know them, why they do certain things. This gets better - considerably so - in later parts of the story, but the first chapters need attention in this respect, I'd say. Keep in mind that an excellent last part of a long story will fail to convince those who have already stopped reading after three chapters. You have to tie your reader from page 1. The concept is worth trying that, so give that a good go

In summary, I would ask myself intimately what exactly you wish to see the reader becoming fascinated by. I'd say it's the plant, how it's gaining reign and how it is attempted to be destroyed. And that basic idea is really excellent; it has classic potential often used successfully in many - also non-erotica books and here it allows highly original perspectives on erotica. So stick to it, sufficiently to create tension.

In a longer story, you will of course require side lines and additional plot to keep it lively, but the plant is what you wish us to be fascinated by. So, allow us. And closely keep an eye on the requirement that the purpose of sexual story-parts has to be 'logical' within the story-concept chosen.
Which, in my humble opinion, means you could maybe do with slightly less anal scenes, breast stimulation, group sex, bondage-ish elements and other things you may find thrilling as a writer, but will also distract from the potential of your story-idea. And by doing that, also leave us - me at least - less convinced of the credibility of this intriguing fantasy-concept.

I hope I wasn't too hard on you here. I really think this could make a sizzling erotica-story. It also plays with the power of scent, which is a personal favourite of mine. But like many novel-volume erotic writing it needs polishing, close revision and concentration. One of my teachers in academic writing often said to me: "This is a pretty good piece of writing; and it will be even better if it'd be half the size." I often remember these words. I did now too.
I am currently writing a longer erotic story myself. And I think I wrote about three pages for every page that eventually made it into the final concept. I had a basic idea, that I started to write on. But on and on, things kept changing, made me feel I had to adjust, sometimes revise whole events. I had people look at it, point me out that certain things that weren't making sense. That characters weren't appearing to be to the (that) reader what the writer intended them to be. So you need a mirror now and then; someone pulling you out of the space you're in when writing long work. Please consider this one.
All these things come with writing a long story. It's infinitely more complex than writing the same amount of pages in several short stories. And it's terribly tough work to do it well. And let me assure you that I feel much more confident in analyzing what I think could be better in your story, than I feel confident to have done it right myself

Let that encourage you to not be let down. This is well worth a good revision. I wish you good luck with that.

Paul

 

[KillerMuffin]

That's the joy of science fiction and fantasy. You don't have to train a real plant, you create a fake one.

The author's job is to get the reader to suspend his or her disbelief in the story's elements enough for the reader to enjoy the story. From what I read the plants were genetically created things gotten by the splicing of human DNA with some sort of creeping vine DNA. That would make them something entirely different than a plant, but not a plant. While I know this is impossible, it seemed reasonable enough a solution. Rather like Marvel comics' insistance that Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive spider and turned into a superhuman.

You cannot train a real plant like that, but why could you not train a fictional one?

Frankly, I don't see the attraction of plant sex at all. It rather turns my tummy. I would have preferred to see this type of story sans sex and with a much stronger concentration on the development of the plot and the characters. Sort of the whole Independence Day last ditch stand of a few human survivors against the monstrous race of evil non-humans intent on taking over the world and eliminating humanity.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

4.78

Just saw that this story is rated #55 overall with 18 votes and a 4.78 rating. Congratulations, Alexander III. (11/23 at 10:00 am CST)

Not bad for a first submission, huh? Just shows how much we critics know.

---dr.M.